Born in 1993.

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October Awareness Month

This post is going to be all about the education of Octobers TWO important awareness campaigns.

The first one is SUPER well known, as I’m sure everywhere you have gone, everything is pink washed. October is BREAST CANCER AWARENESS MONTH. But the other not so known campaign in October is AGENT ORANGE AWARENESS MONTH.

We all have a basic understanding of what breast cancer is. We all know the color pink, and the pink ribbon have come to symbolize breast cancer. 1 in 8 women will be diagnosed with breast cancer in their lifetime. &To me, that isn’t acceptable. I will never accept the numbers until it is 0 in every 0, for ANY type of cancer.

As for the pink washing. I can promise you, many places you’re going to go this month, it’s going to be all pink everything. In fact, the bank I work at pink washed! We have pink receipts, pink money envelopes, pink flowers, pink chocolate, and we wear pink of Fridays! Now this pink washing is an incredible movement to raise awareness. I swear almost every other customer asks me why their receipt is pink! There are so many charities out there, that it gets a little convoluted. Some charities are a little corrupt and not much of your donation is actually going to fund research or do anything productive in conquering the beast that is cancer. There are some charities that only spend 10% of the funds donated, on it’s purpose, but there are others that spend 91% into funding research, money for women to get their mammograms etc. So I have taken it upon myself, to compile a list of three not so known, “worthy charities” that you should be donating to!

This charity was founded by three women in the early 90’s who were all diagnosed with breast cancer before the age of 35. YSCs goal is to educate young women around the country about breast cancer. Right now they are taking part in REVLON’s LOVE ON A MILLION DOLLARS campaign. Which ever charity involved raises the most money, will get a $1MIL in donations from Revlon. Go Revlon!!!

LBBC’s mission is to help those diagnosed, those recovered and their families. One of the coolest things I think this charity does, is provide breast cancer patients with a “personalized match” so you have a battle buddy as I would refer to it. A friend that best matches your current situation with the evil C word. Clink the link to make a donation!

One of the biggest issues with any type of battle with cancer, it the debt you can go into. With not being able to work, and your partners, family etc having to take time off of work….and all the treatments, medications, and not to mention the gas to get to the hospital, the debt that can occur becomes astronomical. The Pink Fund raises money to assist those battling breast cancer stay afloat.

Okay…now for the lesser known little awareness campaign happening in the month of October…AGENT ORANGE AWARENESS.

As some of you know, my father passed away from lung cancer caused by Agent Orange. AO is an herbicide created by your friendly monsters at Monsanto. It was sprayed in Vietnam, and caused many of the few that were lucky enough to come home from the war, to have serious health complications with themselves, and even some of those affected, have their children and grandchildren suffering the consequences of Agent Orange.

I have scoured the internet in search of a charity campaign and didn’t come up with much, and I bet most of you are just hearing that it’s AO Awareness month right now. It’s a shame how badly the care for our country’s veterans truly is.

There actually are only a few states who officially observe AO Awareness month, and many are in need of a governors signature. Sadly, my home state of Massachusetts is still waiting a signature from our governor.

SO-what can you do to observe AO awareness? SPREAD THE WORD. Start a specific day of the week, that you chose to wear orange, and let everyone know how badly our veterans are suffering. SIGN THIS PETITIONThis petition is for the US Veterans Administration to provide help to the families affected by AO. There are 3rd generations born with birth defects caused by Agent Orange.

Little history lesson for those of you who don’t know….the Vietnam war, was not a war that was greatly supported by the citizens of the US. Men and women who risked their lives for our great country, and were lucky enough to return from such a deadly war, were not welcomed home. My Father even had all of his valor stolen from his apartment. We need to honor those who served, and our government needs to take responsibility for their mistake with Agent Orange.

*Rochester NY memorial*

Veterans who were left behind, continue to “walk into the Vietnam Wall” everyday.

Check out the list provided on this blog post, about which states are still in need of their governors signature, and if you’re on it, CONTACT YOUR GOVENOR. Also, be sure to check out this website that I just found for some awesome resources you probably aren’t aware of.

This month is an incredibly powerful awareness month. &If you chose the right steps to help defeat breast cancer, and help our veterans and families affected by AO this month, and every month, we can live in a better world.

“What you do makes a difference…and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”-Jane Goodall